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(Un)Gratitude

This post is part of the UNCO synchro blog. You can read other posts from the series here.

I talk a lot about gratitude on this blog (see these), and this is the season of gratitude, thanksgiving being a few days a way and all. But we have been given this challenge with UNCO to think about “ungraditude.” I know it’s not a word, but go with it…

I was thinking about all the things I’m ungrateful for and there is a long list this year. But here’s what all the things really come down to… I’m ungrateful for brokenness, for my ability to cause another pain, and for another to cause me pain.

Once upon a time someone hurt someone else, in some way, some how. We call this sin. (If you want to read more about my thoughts on sin, I wrote about it in The Four Letter Word) Like every person I have been hurt, and I have caused hurt. I have bullied and struggled, I have projected and manipulated to get what I wanted, I have been dumped on, projected on to, hurt in countless ways. Some forgivable, some I need God to forgive.

I am ungrateful for all of it.

I love community, I love relationship, I love interaction and people and connection. I hate the way we hurt each other. I hate that I may expect something from you and you from me and we might disappoint. I hate that your shit and my shit might collide and we have to navigate the shit blinded by our own pain. I hate that you might die on me, or quit on me, or worse, leave me just because. I’m afraid of leaving you for no good reason or quitting on you or dying on you. I hate that in my attempt to help I might end up hurting you.

This is the risk we run. This is the risk to being in relationship, the ability to be hurt or cause pain. Because we’re imperfect, sinful, fallen (whatever that means) creatures. Why is not a useful question here, how may be…

Self Awareness is key, sure, absolutely. Knowing my triggers and how I have been hurt, vital. Knowing when I am spoiling for a fight or in need of something and having the ability to ask for what I need. Quite helpful in relationship. However, even when I am able to ask that doesn’t mean you will automatically be able to provide, and I need to be okay with that too.

Because God only knows when I am going to say something mundane that will trigger someone else. Or vice versa. We mean well as people, we really do, but we hurt each other.

A few weeks ago in Youth Group we were discussing things we were ungrateful for. They had great answers: war, pollution, bullying, suicide… but, like most of us, they wanted to fix it fairly quickly. The most echoed thought was “we need to have the bad days so we can appreciate the good.” And this seemed to be an acceptable thought, by the youth and the youth leaders. I pushed a little, but really, this is not just acceptable, this is preferred in our world. It’s how we justify the hurt.

I don’t need the hurt justified. I don’t need bad days to appreciate the good. I hate bad days, they cause me and the people around me pain and I am just ungrateful for them. I’m ungrateful for the brokenness that causes them and the sinful cycles we are all stuck in and project on each other because of them.

This is where I usually fix it and wrap it all in a bow, somehow turn it into being grateful, but not today, not with this post, I will however end with this:

God, I am ungrateful for the bad days, ungrateful for the sin that pulls me from you. Ungrateful for the shit that life creates and my ability to hurt and be hurt. I am ungrateful for it all. Heal our broken hearts, heal my pain. Amen.